


Jeremy Was Different

by transriot



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, And a cryptid hunter, Background Chloe/Brooke, Background Jake/Rich, Background Relationships, Fluff, Humor, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Lowkey Christine/Jenna, M/M, Pining, Supernatural Elements, michael is a dork
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-16 16:47:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13640328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transriot/pseuds/transriot
Summary: Michael recently moved to Middleborough. The town itself is weird. Sometimes he finds himself on streets he doesn't remember going on. There's a girl who goes ghostly in his class. But no one around him seems to believe him. Things get even weirder once he meets Jeremy. Michael has a strong inkling that Jeremy isn't human at all. Years of lore don't lie, and Michael is an expert in lore.Jeremy might be a vampire and Michael is hopelessly pining after him.Rated T for swearing.





	Jeremy Was Different

There was something very strange about this town. Michael had always prided himself on his bullshit detector and there were several things in the town that made it go off. He wasn’t the type to pry into people’s lives, he typically didn't go and stick his nose into drama. But he had good observation skills, and something fucky was definitely going on in Middleborough.

Michael had just moved to Middleborough. It was a relatively small town in New Jersey, about two hours away from Newark. When he and his family had first moved he wasn’t really excited about it. They had only been living there for a few months and he had a whole book full with conspiracies on the town. For one, Middleborough was impossible to find on any map. The website for it was old, and the design quality was low. The most recent news piece he could find from a source outside of town was the obscene amount of small animal carcasses that had been found one fall.

The town was pretty old too. Despite this when he first moved there none of his friends had any idea where he was. It wasn’t rural, more suburban than anything. Still, it was small, old, and basically not real outside of the small bubble it lived in.

On top of that, the town usually had overcast during the day. The nights lacked the same clouds, making the moonshine bright enough that Michael was able to see without using his phone as a flashlight. (Granted they had moved there during winter and they were in the North East meaning that there were cold drifts from Canada and clouds full of snow).

Michael could hear howls late at night, once he was pretty sure that a girl in his class went _translucent_ when the sun hit her. She had moved away from that sunny spot as soon as she was able. Michael hadn’t even been high when he saw that. He lived near the edge of the forests and he swore that something too large to be any sort of local bird came flying out one night. A dark blot against the moon with wings (naturally his parents didn’t believe him and told him to lay off the edibles, having cool parents was hard).

Clocks didn’t seem to work the same way there as they did anywhere else. Sometimes Michael found himself lost, his mind was playing tricks on him. He would turn onto one street and end up on another.

It was _weird_.

Things just got even more strange when he met Jeremy. Michael’s car had broken down and he had to walk in order to get home. This was when he was still new in town, so he had no idea if this was his own fault or the towns fault.

It was a rainy, gloomy sort of day. Michael had his hoodie up and he was walking straight and had suddenly ended up in front of a house. Michael had driven down that road before, there weren’t any twists or turns. No divergences. There had been no house and no actual reason to him ending up on a completely different street in front of a house that he had never seen before. The house couldn’t be called much of a house anymore. It was old and depleted. Its hinges were falling apart, ivy crawling up the walls. The lawn was overgrown and the windows were boarded up. Someone, probably a high schooler, had written in spray paint along the front door “crack den”.

So instead of having a cold walk while listening to some Bob Marley, Michael ended up freaking out while listening to Bob Marley. He paced back and forth. It didn’t make any sense how this had happened. Michael tried to go home but he ended up walking around in circles. Circles around the old house and every time he ended up at the front he felt like he was losing his mind.

And then he met Jeremy. Jeremy and Michael met in a collision. The other teen was rounding the corner and their shoulders clipped. Michael had been surprised and caught off guard. His headphones slipped off his head and Jeremy instantly fumbled into apologies.

"Oh my god I’m so sorry, uh, are you okay? Are-Are your headphones okay?" Jeremy looked at him, his face a bright red, flushed with embarrassment.

Michael bent down, picking up his headphones and examining them. “I’m fine, no damage done,” he showed them to Jeremy with a smile on his face, "See?"

Jeremy’s shoulders sagged with some relief, but the way he carried himself was guarded and nervous. He kept some distance between him and Michael. "That’s good," he gave Michael a very small smile. "I’m Jeremy."

"Michael," he introduced himself back. "Do you mind helping me find my way? I got turned around…" that was the easiest way to explain it then.

Jeremy had been nice. He was more than happy to help Michael find his way back home. The two of them had traded numbers. But Michael still found it impossible how it seemed that the house came out of nowhere.

It was almost too weird for Michael. Like _way_ too weird.

He confided in a friend he had made during his music theory class, a round-faced girl named Christine who had laughed when he told her the story. Later Christine told Jenna Rolan that the “town was trying to hook Michael and Jeremy up”. Jenna had laughed and texted it no doubt several people, while Christine just giggled at the idea.

Maybe Michael was just being weird about this whole thing. Everyone he knew had lived in the town their whole lives, he and his family were the only newcomers for the first time in like a decade. Michael was still going to figure this town out.

▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁

Michael came up with a new theory a few months after meeting Jeremy.

It involved Jeremy himself. Michael spent most of his time with Jeremy. It turned out that they went to the same school, and Jeremy knew the people he already talked to at school (not surprising since everyone knew everyone). The two of them texted constantly since they walked into each other in front of that weird house. It was a constant stream of conversation and connection.

Sure, Michael talked to the others. He and Christine bonded over the theater, even though Michael was more interested in the technical parts of it and the composition of music for the musicals. Rich and him weirdly got along, he and Jake both liked weed, he was still trying to figure out Brooke, but Chloe was nice to talk to. And Jenna was the same way even though she knew too much.

But Jeremy was different. The two of them had so many things in common. They both liked retro games, and surprisingly Jeremy had a music taste wider than Michael’s own (listening to Jeremy sing along to songs was a major plus, it was enough to make Michael feel gooey). Something between the two of them just clicked. They were able to bounce off of each other, matching jokes and understanding each other on a level that probably matched an old couple.

(Michael confided this information to Jenna one night while they were watching a documentary on aliens. He told her how Jeremy made his chest feel warm. How the world felt different around him; it felt so much more expansive.

Jenna had laughed, snorting when she did. "Yeah, you _definitely_  have a crush on him." Michael had just stammered and flush.

Okay so maybe Michael swooned over Jeremy.

Maybe he found the way that Jeremy stuttered endearing. His curls soft and his shampoo amazing. Maybe he was a little too into Jeremy’s face when he smiled.

Or the way he looked on Michael’s bed, a joint between his fingers as he stared intensely at the show they were watching, the blue light hitting his face and shaping it into something unearthly. Jeremy looked gorgeous in all lights in Michael’s opinion. But the best was when the moonlight hit his face. His eyes were darker at night, his skin paler — perfect even with the acne scars Jeremy hated — and his hair seemed to cast a halo around him with the strands that stuck out and were lit up by the moonlight.

Jeremy also had the cutest lip biting habit and he was so funny and sincere. Sometimes he rambled but that was okay because Michael would gladly listen to every word that Jeremy ever said even if it was over something —

Fine. Okay. Whatever. Maybe he did have a _massive_  crush on Jeremy.)

But that’s all besides the point. Because Jeremy Heere was a vampire.

Michael wasn't crazy. At least he didn't think so. That girl, Madeline, who turned translucent in the sun was just one that reaffirmed him. Another was that he saw some guy one night during the full moon in the forest out back behind his house, at least Michael had thought it was a guy until he got a good look at him. The guy had turned out to be a massive, wolf-like man who howled at the sky before running into the forest (Michael found a destroyed rabbit den the next day).

The only thing that Michael needed to do was prove to Christine and Jenna that he wasn’t crazy.

He had all of the evidence—his mom was super into Anne Rice, plus Google and Wikipedia definitely helped as did the hours of Podcasts that he listened to.

One day at lunch he leaned forward on the table, Chloe and Brooke were there but neither of the two girls was paying attention to him. They were looking at a video on Chloe’s phone. Jake and Rich were most likely making out in the corner of the bathroom and Jeremy was retaking his history test.

"Jeremy is a vampire. Look at all of the signs you guys. He’s completely a vampire," Michael whispered to Christine and Jenna who shared a look. Christine played with her slushie straw as Michael continued. ”All of the signs!“ Michael pulled a notebook out of his bag, flipping to the first page of notes he had. The notebook had several highlight markers on it, there were sticky notes and drawings attached to pages.

"What are those signs, Michael?" Christine asked him, patient and willing to listen to him.

"Well, for one he knows a bunch of this old music and stuff that I don’t even know. And I love retro stuff okay? And then he never steps out into the sun, he’s always wearing long pants and sleeves."

"It’s winter and you wear the same hoodie all of the time Michael," Jenna’s face scrunched with amusement.

"Touche, Rolan, touche," Michael raised an eyebrow at her and nodded his head. "But we ordered pizza the other day and I got garlic knots and he didn’t touch the garlic knots at all. Even people who don’t like garlic like garlic knots. It’s basically just buttery bread."

"Awe! You and Jeremy had a pizza date at your house," Christine cooed. "How cute."

"It wasn’t a date,“ Michael ran a hand through his hair as he tried to get back on track.

"Does this mean I can let everyone know that the boyfs are official?“ Jenna asked him, already typing into her phone.

"What? Boys? No, Jenna. Christine, that’s not the point here. And there’s nothing official about _anything_ ," Michael insisted, "I’m telling you that Jeremy is a vampire. I swear. You know who else doesn’t eat garlic? Vampires. Years of lore don’t lie."

Chloe looked at Michael, "I don’t eat garlic knots either and I’m not a vampire."

Michael raised an eyebrow at her, pointing, "Or are you?" He gasped dramatically.

"I’m not."

Michael narrowed his eyes at her in suspicion. ”Okay, sure. Anyways. Jeremy drinks from a non-see through water bottle. He could have blood in there. He’s also super pale. Not that there’s anything wrong with how pale he is. It just makes it nicer whenever he gets flustered and he begins to blush. Plus he stays skinny, not that fat vampires can’t exist it’s just not in the typical lore. Of course, Jeremy is also charming when he wants to be which is another vampire trait to lore in victims, and when he sings his voice is just so lovely. So perfect." He sighed wistfully.

Jenna snapped her fingers, bringing him back into focus. "Michael. Vampire Jeremy?"

"Right. Right, sorry," Michael felt his cheeks heat slightly from his pining. Stupid Jeremy and his stupid smile. "Back to my point. Jeremy is definitely a vampire."

"Oh Michael," Brooke piped up from where she was snuggled against Chloe’s arm, "We all know that —" she began. Chloe slapped her arm gently before Brooke finished.

"Brooke!“ Jenna hissed. Christine just patiently sipped at her slushie.

"Know what? What do you all know?" Michael looked at them, surprised that _Jenna_ of all people was withholding information.

"Nothing, Michael," Chloe told him casually, while Brooke rolled her eyes. He felt cast out by that statement. It was suddenly clear in that moment that he was an outsider to them. They had known each other for years and had only known Michael for a few months.

On top of that, Michael was just left more confused now, but he didn’t get the chance to continue because soon Jeremy was rushing in. Dropping his stuff and sitting next to him.

"How’d your test go?" Christine asked him, changing the topic of the table. Michael was silent during lunch, thinking about what Brooke could have been saying.

▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁

Jeremy definitely knew that Michael was acting weird. He kept giving him concerned glances, raising his brows every now and then, fiddling with his fingers, he also pressed his lips tightly as if he wanted to say something but wasn’t.

It was three a.m and the two of them were at Jeremy’s house this time. Jeremy paused Apocalypse of the Damned, making Michael look at him.

"Michael, is there something wrong?" Jeremy sounded nervous. "You’ve been acting… weird," his voice was unsure.

A million different lies ran through Michael’s thoughts as he tried to figure out what to say in response. What came out was the truth instead. "I know you’re a vampire!“

"I— what?" Jeremy’s concerned was replaced with confusion.

"I know you’re a vampire. You’re incredibly pale. You don’t eat garlic. You never drink anything but whatever’s in your water bottle, I’ve never seen you in the actual sunlight because whenever it’s sunny you find ways to stay out of it. Plus your voice is ethereal, you’re too gorgeous to just be a normal human being. And you have pretty sharp canines too. You also never really show much of your neck but one time I was pretty sure I saw a scar there that could look like teeth marks and it sucks that you’re a vampire because it means I can’t take you for coffee or go on picnic dates with you in the summer or any of the cute dates that Google recommends to me."

Michael took a breath when he was done and looked at Jeremy. He hadn’t meant for all of that to come out at once. Jeremy was staring at him, his eyes wide and his mouth slightly gaping.

"I, uh—" Michael began, suddenly not sure what to say.

Jeremy scrambled closer to him, their faces inches apart. Michael pulled Jeremy close by the back of his head, closing the distance and kissing him. It wasn’t a kiss that would go down into Hollywood history. Jeremy’s lips were slightly chapped (from biting them) and his hands fumbled before he just wrapped his arms around Michael’s neck.

But Jeremy was a lot warmer than expected, and his lips moved against Michael’s like the two of them were made to kiss each other.

Michael wasn’t sure how long the two of them spent kissing each other. Jeremy was the one to move away first to catch his breath. After a few seconds, Michael was swooping back in and kissing him again.

They ended up on the floor, lips bruised. The rest of the night they cuddled, Jeremy drawing small circles into Michael’s skin while they watched Drunk History.

▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁

Their first date was a simple event. It was winter in New Jersey and they ended up driving to a local mall and hanging out. Everything was basically normal between them, they were just boyfriends instead of friends.

They were sitting in the food court when Jeremy knocked their ankles together. "So I bet you know that Rich is a werewolf too, huh?"

Michael choked on his lemonade.

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first bmc fic so hello!  
> this was just a silly idea I had so now you all get to read this garbage  
> for reference Michael and Brooke are the only full humans in their grade
> 
> hmu at electricitypurified on instagram or trans-riot.tumblr.com


End file.
